


Tie Strings to Clouds

by Emilia0001



Series: 'Til Morning Comes, Let's Tessellate [1]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Drabble, Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Natsume Takashi's Terrible Childhood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-12-25 22:54:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18270809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilia0001/pseuds/Emilia0001
Summary: "Now you're breathing manually."Alternatively, unrelated drabbles describing Natsume finding home.





	1. Slow for No One

For all that it's worth they try, and that's _something._

But it’s unnerving, the way he can't tell anyone from anyone anymore, the way everybody looks a little bit frayed at the edges - perhaps a youkai, or a little bit intoxicated, in his eyes.

And it isn't fair, to Misuzu or Hinoe, Touko-san or Shigeru-san or his friends, the way that everything starts resembling each other, and if they do, it's just better to keep fists ready for anything that so much as moves.

That's not to say that he's violent, just that he's lost. That he comes home and doesn't feel at home. That the man, the stranger across the street with an umbrella makes Natsume bolt. That the buzzing sound the fridge makes sometimes echoes between his ears until he wants to bang his skull free of it, unsure of if it's _really_ just a fridge.

It's scary, that sometimes when Natsume's tired, Shigeru-san resembles the guardian he once lived with when he was eleven. It's scary, that Natsume one sunny afternoon busies himself with tidying his room, putting trinkets and books and odd pieces of clothing back into the little box in the closet, hides his traces of existence behind the sliding doors.

 

It scares him. There's nothing that doesn't.

And they try. But Natsume's got a logical fear of being chained up or tied to a chair, to be locked away and have the key thrown away. That he'll die, that _they'll_ die. Misuzu or Hinoe, Touko-san, Shigeru-san or his friends.

But when Touko-san calls him down for dinner, he says his thanks and smiles, pale sage eyes bleak as glass, white noise ringing in his ears.

 

\---

 

When Natsume gets a call from Tachibana, he smiles, wobbly, uncertain. His friends look at him with a second of worry but spares zero for prodding.

And when the thin, darkened piece of paper in his pocket disappears and he smiles, they do spare him a second.

It pays off. Natsume feels slightly guilty about it, but Nishimura's smile washes most of it away.

“You look alike your mom, Natsume!” he says. They're all huddling together to get a view of the photograph.

“They look like they were really kind.”

“Mm,” Natsume hums, glances with the slightest bit of vulnerability at Kitamoto. “They were.”

Later that night, Natsume will cry. For his home, which will be demolished, and for his friends, who never complained once. And because he was permitted to speak a word about his parents to them for the first time.

 

\----

 

Where Natsume is young, he knows he laughs.

He remembers it. He doesn't remember, but he _remembers,_ the way one remembers to breathe until somebody says one now does it manually. Deep in his marrow; ingrained in a way that a human brain isn't capable of.

So, when Natsume steps past the rusted metal wicket dragging in the unkempt grass for the last time, the memories stay very vivid in the sense that they've always been there, crucial for his survival but otherwise indiscernible, like breathing.

He carries the proof of his birth, of his laughter and his father's absence in the form of a severely ridged wooden plate, either big enough to fit his name or with writings small enough to fit it. He holds it like it's age-old parchment bruised by fire and a steadfast, olive beryl, all at once.

He holds it close to his heart, so close that his hands numb and it complicates having his train ticket checked. And it takes so much space, the manual breathing and the olive beryl, that it's only because of Nyanko-sensei that he makes it home.

 

He holds his family name close to his chest, even when he steps into the genkan. Shigeru-san and Touko-san smile at him in a welcome; And the manual breathing isn't anymore, somehow.

He doesn't have a mom. He doesn't have a dad. He doesn't have a breath left to his family name but his own and his eyes are bruised with sadness and longing, a retelling of the pleading he'd done at youth for something that wouldn't ever be again.

But a home is a place which he'll miss and where he'll be missed, were he never to return.

 

“Welcome home, Takashi.”

 

He hands the cracking entrance plate to Shigeru-san, smile small and wobbly but oh-so vulnerable, open, honest. “I'm home.”


	2. Blood is Rare and Sweet

He remembers being seven, stomach rumbling and hands shaking along his sides after lashing out towards a classmate. That day he'd go home, head hung low and vocal chords chopped and his stomach would keep rumbling. The convenience store packets became more accessible than the cupboard at their home, despite not having a penny in his pocket. He dislikes doing that, but he also dislikes it when his aunt finds him in the cupboard and isn't happy with him.

He'd get in trouble for that, too, eventually. But only just that; _eventually._

If Natsume screams and cries a lot, they'll sometimes leave him alone if he feings calmness in his lonesomeness, if he's lucky. That becomes a habit, too, eventually.

He applies the logic to the rest of his life, does his absolute best to look through the twenty-two eyed monster that follows him to school, lowers his head and moves to a corner during the breaks at school and goes home and prays for anything, for anyone to _remember him_ this time. Goes home to a house where nobody knows him and he knows none, a house that is damp and cold and dirty, a house on the third floor that's too small and too big for them at once. But he learns to scream when they're near and to not when they're far, to go with hunger until it's unbearable and to only then do something, anything. He learns.

Life's okay, then.

 

\---

 

Ogata doesn't seem to like him very much, but somehow sticks around him anyway. Natsume doesn't mind, really.

“Do you want me to cut your hair for you? You keep flicking it out of your eyes when reading, you know.”

Natsume smiles at that. “Thank you. It's okay, though.” But really, the day feels a little bit better just with that. It's true, the fringe _does_ bother him, but it's just nice that someone notices it. The breeze gathers it in the air to tickle his cheekbones, strands dragging thin, web-like shadows over his eyes when they move, sun bright and kind beyond the branches above them.

“Anytime,” she says, and he believes her. He's annoying, they're both stubborn and Natsume's not as talkative as he wished that he was, but this is nice.

“Ogata?”

“Hm?”

“Could you -- maybe show me the library later? If you have time, I mean.”

He can see Ogata light up at that, strangely enough. “After school it is!”

 

\---

 

“Takashi-kun” Fujiwara-san says. “Welcome.”

He looks at the woman to his right, then at the tiles by the entrance over the threshold, and down to the back of his bandaged hand.

He takes a tentative step. “Pardon the intrusion.”

The hallway is long, ceiling tall and doors many. It's a pretty house, with large rooms and silky, cold wooden flooring. There's a little television in the corner of the living room, and  doors open up along the wall toward both the back and front yard. The house is at the edge of a forest. It's undeniably pretty. His room is big and stale and empty, a heater in one corner and a little desk by the window and sliding doors to his right where the closet is, but it's pretty, too. He can see the line of trees from the window, soon to collect buds out of the warmth of the air, can see the thin strip of road beyond the entrance and the fields beyond it.

It feels different somehow, from the places he's been before. Putting aside the circumstances under which the Fujiwara's took him in, which in and of themselves were extraordinary, something aches dully when he watches the bare scenery before him, only seperatined from him by thin pieces of glass. As if he's been here before, as if he's had a whole other lifetime somewhere in a distant alternate universe which he spent here.

The ache is there, but the ache is nice, like a distand rumble through his limbs reaching all four corners of the room. This room feels strangely like his, the tatami under his feet warm and coarse and forest outside drawing him in. Like he was meant to be here, because he was to begin with.

Fujiwara-san, _Shigeru-san,_ carries in a little box after him, containing all of his belongings but the clothes on his back and the bag over his shoulder.

“This was my old room,” Shigeru-san confesses. “It'd been used as storage until recently. I'm happy that it'll get used again, after all these years.”

Shigeru-san looks at Natsume with a little smile. It looks genuine. “I'm sure Touko would like if we could fit you with a school uniform, once you're ready. And a few new shirts, fit for spring. Would that be okay?”

Natsume stares at him. _‘Would that be okay?’_

“Of course,” he says, bows although it sends an ache down his spine. “Thank you.”

He really hopes this'll go okay. It _has_ to.

"Takashi," Shigeru-san says, still smiling. He places a hand on his downcast head, but Natsume doesn't ever find himself flinching. It feels right, somehow.

"Welcome home."

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder that I don't understand how the English language works and I don't know it.
> 
> This was basically a nonsensical vent and word vomit because of writers block. It was fun, nonetheless.


End file.
